Motor vehicles are increasingly equipped with driver assistance systems which detect the environment with the aid of sensor systems and, based on the traffic situation thus detected, deduce automatic reactions of the vehicle and/or instruct, in particular warn, the driver. In the process, a distinction is made between comfort and safety functions.
At the present time, FSRA (Full Speed Range Adaptive Cruise Control) is the most important function in the area of comfort functions. The vehicle regulates its own speed to the desired speed set by the driver, provided that the traffic situation permits this; otherwise the vehicle's speed is automatically adjusted to the traffic situation. At present, autonomous light assistance, in particular autonomous activation of the high beam, is establishing itself as another important comfort function.
The focus of the safety functions is reducing the braking distance in emergency situations. The range of suitable driver assistance functions ranges from a warning, automatic prefilling of the brake in order to reduce braking latency (prefill), an improved braking assistant (BAS+) right up to autonomous emergency braking.
The aforementioned high beam controller is now achieved with camera sensors which detect the lights of vehicles driving ahead or oncoming vehicles. If there is a risk of dazzling other road users detected in this way, the high beam is either switched off or adaptively controlled such that no dazzling occurs.